"you can't be half pregnant" meaning in English

See you can't be half pregnant in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Audio: En-au-you can't be half pregnant.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: From the notion that someone is either pregnant or not. Head templates: {{head|en|proverb}} you can't be half pregnant
  1. (idiomatic) Said of an either-or situation; there are only two available choices. Tags: idiomatic

Download JSON data for you can't be half pregnant meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the notion that someone is either pregnant or not.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb"
      },
      "expansion": "you can't be half pregnant",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English sentences",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011, John Warrillow, Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, Penguin, page 47",
          "text": "Alex, you can't be half pregnant. If you keep doing other work that falls outside of your logo design process, you'll send mixed messages to all of your stakeholders.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said of an either-or situation; there are only two available choices."
      ],
      "id": "en-you_can't_be_half_pregnant-en-proverb-YhaeByNV",
      "links": [
        [
          "either-or",
          "either-or#English"
        ],
        [
          "choice",
          "choice#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Said of an either-or situation; there are only two available choices."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-you can't be half pregnant.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0d/En-au-you_can%27t_be_half_pregnant.ogg/En-au-you_can%27t_be_half_pregnant.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/En-au-you_can%27t_be_half_pregnant.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "you can't be half pregnant"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the notion that someone is either pregnant or not.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb"
      },
      "expansion": "you can't be half pregnant",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs",
        "English sentences",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011, John Warrillow, Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, Penguin, page 47",
          "text": "Alex, you can't be half pregnant. If you keep doing other work that falls outside of your logo design process, you'll send mixed messages to all of your stakeholders.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said of an either-or situation; there are only two available choices."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "either-or",
          "either-or#English"
        ],
        [
          "choice",
          "choice#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Said of an either-or situation; there are only two available choices."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-you can't be half pregnant.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0d/En-au-you_can%27t_be_half_pregnant.ogg/En-au-you_can%27t_be_half_pregnant.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/En-au-you_can%27t_be_half_pregnant.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "you can't be half pregnant"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-22 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (fc4f0c7 and c937495). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.